Fermented foodsadd probiotics to your diet, assist digestion of the other foods you’re eating, and usually unlock vitamins or nutrients within the fermented foods that would be otherwise unavailable to you. Many say we should start each meal with a spoonful or two of fermented food.

I’m not exactly sure what chutney is – sort of like a jam, maybe? It’s got nuts, fruit, and spices in it, and I have all the ingredients. I’ve been eyeing this recipe up for about a year now, wondering when I’ll get up the guts to make it.

Thanks for pushing me, KS community.

The gentle nudge of peer pressure can be a great thing.

My Recipe Goal

This is definitely a Back to Basics “Advanced” Monday Mission, as I explained at the beginning of January. Basics of real food for some, leaps for others.

I have all the ingredients – there are still fall apples in our garage, and I picked up lemon juice and walnuts just an hour ago. (Mental note: I should ask Wardeh if ferments are still safe with funky apples, the kind really only good for applesauce!)

I’m thinking we can add this to our yogurt, in our oatmeal, or maybe even next to a slice of Butternut Squash Bars that I’m planning to make for dessert. (The recipe is in Smart Sweets – gotta keep some secrets!)

Here’s what I’ll have to do to make this happen:

drain yogurt cheese to get whey – already in the calendar for Wednesday after guests leave

mix up Chinese 5-spice blend

make sure I have two very clean quart jars (or maybe one…I might just try half the recipe out of prudence)

JUST DO IT!

So…what are you going to ferment?

Rookie?

If you’ve never grown bacteria in your own home intended for consumption, the joy is indescribable. You really must try it.

If you’re a total rookie, I recommend starting with yogurt. My recipe is incredibly simple, makes no dishes, and yogurt is pretty recognizable by the fam.

Feel free to leave a link to your favorite ferment in the comments, or if you’re looking for more ideas, you can order starters for things like water kefir from Cultures for Health and learn via video (plus TONS of recipes) from the fabulous GNOWFGLINS eCourse on fermentation. (By the way, sourdough bread counts, too! It’s just no longer a living ferment when you eat it…) Check out the latest free webinar while you’re over there…

No Way, No Fermenting For Me!

How about this as an alternate mission: grow something anyway. Sprout something. Then at least you’ll have some living food in the dead of winter. Sprouting is SO easy, and also really cool. Be sure to show your kids if you have them. (Kids, that is, not sprouts.)

Cool Update

I’m pleased to feature Fertility Flower as a sponsor this month, and Kimberly, the boss lady of the charting software, shared a fitting new feature they’re offering with the help of Donielle at Naturally Knocked Up (a natural fertility blog):

As you chart your fertility, you can keep track of charting your foods for fertility, too! This reminds me a little of the Bradley birth plan food charts I was supposed to do while pregnant, but better.

Disclosure: I partner with the eCourses and will receive a percentage – but I also teach with them and LOVE all the work they do! I am also an affiliate with Cultures for Health. See my full disclosure statement here.

About Katie Kimball @ Kitchen Stewardship

I’m a Catholic wife and mother of four who wants the best of nutrition and living for her family. I believe that God calls us to be good stewards of all His gifts as we work to feed our families: time, finances, the good green earth, and of course, our healthy bodies. I'm the founder and boss lady here at Kitchen Stewardship -- welcome aboard!

54 Bites of Conversation So Far

We’ve been working on this. We’ve done yogurt a lot but haven’t really gotten past that. A few weeks ago we did our first ever batch of sauerkraut and it turned out really well and we also started up a jar of preserved lemons. Interested to hear how the chutney turns out.

I am going to get back into yogurt. I have started doing milk kefir (two batches so far — my so loves it), water kefir (trading someone local a SCOBY for water kefir grains), and sourdough. A little afraid of fruit/vegetable ferments still but I want to try. And cheese making! We are going through about 5 – 6 lbs. a week I think…I need to learn to make it!

We love the salsa recipe in Nourishing Traditions. We can’t taste the ferment at all until it’s a month or two old and then it’s more bubbly but not really sour. We make ours with mild chilies and we use it by the heaping spoonfull on any mexican style dinner. Of course I really like cilantro which it has a lot of. So if you don’t like cilantro you might not like it. It does not, however, fit in a quart jar like she says. It fills a half gallon 3/4. I guess if you had tiny tomatoes and onions…

This week I’m trying pickles, sliced. I couldn’t find the right type of cucumbers but hopefully it will work.

I make at least a gallon of yogurt each week…I was hoping for a water kiefer starter for Christmas (no such luck, will just need to buy one!)…would LOVE to make my own cheese (but first we need a raw milk source)…and my husband HATES fermented foods! I think for this week I’ll stick to yogurt…and sprouting chickpeas — I did it last summer and there were really good, even my husband liked them…and he barley tolerates chickpeas!

I have fermented some foods. I tried carrots and didn’t like them at all. My next foray was to make sauer kraut using the NT method and it has turned out really well. My family loves it and I honestly like it so much better than the stuff in vinegar that you buy. It has a milder taste. I have some cabbage in the fridge right now I’m getting ready to do. I make my own yogurt in the crock pot and make my own bread letting it ferment and get sour doughy using the Artisan 5 minutes a day bread method. It is a fantastic way to make all of your own bread. I tried fermented beets, but didn’t care much for them and have gone back to pickling them with vinegar. There are so many things to try and I’m still learning.

I make crockpot yogurt almost weekly. We LOVE it. I used to make sauerkraut regularly, but when we moved, I had no whey. I tried making it with the salt only method in NT, but it was WAY salty. We are still working on finishing it up (I add water to the jar, to make it less salty), and I am planning on getting some more going. I have made pickled beets and they have also gone over very well with my family. The ginger carrots were YUCKY to us. I want to try kefir, but am too cheap to buy grains…anyone in north central Montana have some to give away??? Thanks for this challenge…I’m off to pound me some cabbage!

There’s a loaf of sourdough bread in the oven right now! My bread has been exclusively sourdough for about 1.5 years now, yum. The jar of starter is named Bob, btw…

I’ve been wanting to try making saurkraut for a while, maybe this is the time to just do it! I have done it once before– in a high school biology lab. But we weren’t allowed to actually eat it. (Somehow, the slop served in the cafeteria was deemed to be safe to eat, but our saurkraut wasn’t).

I’ve been making Nukazuke or Japanese rice bran pickles for years now. It took a couple weeks to create the fermentation medium, but after that it is super simple to make fresh tasty pickles.

My dtr even took some of my well-developed rice bran bed to college with her to make pickles as study snacks. She simply buries veggies from the salad bar in rice bran for a couple days before digging them up to eat. Tangy and nutritious — way better than the junk most college kids nibble while studying.

I’ve got to get this mayo thing down!
Saurkraut: check. Beets with orange rind and clove: check (thank goodness it keeps forever at the rate we eat it though!). Kimchi, preserved lemons, hella spicy pickled zucchini: check, check, check. Yogurt: not applicable. So short of the ginger carrots (which y’all are NOT selling me on!) it’s back to condiments.
We’re away for a long weekend so my husband can’t get freaked about me leavings tuff out to “rot”!

It is so funny to me what different families love, while others can’t stomach the thought! We love ferments – and may I suggest, since I have heard several comments that NT recipes are too salty, that you try the recipes on Cultures for Health? We love their salsa; I use the juice from my fermented jalepenos to innoculate, instead of whey. Very good. Oh, but when they say two tomatoes, they must mean REALLY BIG tomoatoes, because I always have to use 3-5 to get a quart.

Not all fermented foods taste the same. I’m not a fan of sauerkraut… although my 6 year old daughter said “This would taste better with pepper.” And by george she was right… Although I still need to eat it with something to get it down. I do, however use the “juice” to season soups with. I just don’t salt the soup and then after it’s dished up put a spoonful of juice in it. It’s a great way to get the good stuff without eating it… We do eats LOTS of kimchi, but not the normal nourishing traditions Kimchi (which is more like spicy sauerkraut). We eat the real Korean stuff that is blood red, made with fish sauce in it, and REALLY spicy. For my kids we wash the spice off and they enjoy it. We also like dilly carrot sticks. I found the recipe on The Nourishing Gourmet. There are also LOTS of other Korean fermented side dishes. If you have a Korean market like H-Mart in your area I would say to check them out. Ours has tables out everyday with at least 12 different side dishes and most of them fermented. The ingredients might not be all organic, but you can at least try them and then find recipes online. That is what I do. And no I am not affiliated with H-Mart. I shop there, but they do not know who I am. I just like to remind people that there are lots of other options out there and don’t feel the need to stick with Nourishing Traditions recipes.

I’ve been going crazy with fermentation after discovering that my local food co-op carries veggie kvass. It’s a perfect alternative to whey as a starter. Since my kids and I don’t do well with dairy, I usually end up throwing out the yogurt cheese when I make whey for cultured veggies.

So far I’ve made regular saurkraut, a kale/cabbage/burdock root/carrot version that is delicious, cortido (no pineapple vinegar, unfortunately), pickled turnips and carrots (which I have yet to taste–just made today) and kimchee. After reading the previous comment, I realize I should ask about whether the kimchee at our Korean market is still alive. That would save some effort, but it would probably be a little spicy for my son, and I bet they use sugar instead of the apple/pear/onion puree called for in my recipe!

I make homemade yogurt every week, and I created my sourdough starter over Christmas and made the soaked sourdough crackers for the second time– delicious! And strangely enough, I made the NT fermented cranberry relish yesterday. I haven’t tried it yet but it looks great.

i love how you break goals down depending on where people are. i have to say, i just made my 1st batch of yogurt in months last night and the kids have already devoured half of it! i linked to your yogurt post in my most recent post today. i need to start making my water kefir again…

I’m proud to say that my kids and I gobble up lots of homemade yogurt. I switched to your much easier method a few months ago, and it’s wonderful! While on the GAPS diet last winter, I made lots of NT sauerkraut, but we all hate the taste. I make it out of obligation when it runs out, though, and I eat some now and then in a feeble attempt to follow through on that goal. Good thing it lasts so long, thanks to the fermentation! I need to try some more fermented foods, so thank you for this reminder to get going with it.

I loved your top posts of the year because it helped me gauge where I am in my baby steps. I was happy to say in the year I’ve been following your site, I’m on a good steady course! We absolutely love the yogurt, switching to natural cleaners (bye-bye parabens, bleach and the like) we are just embarking on our sour dough journey and sprouting beans ( within a day of each other-newby here! I’m not on Face book-but if I were I’d post-I have bubbles in my starter! and some people would think I was nuts!) we are excited about continueing our North Dakota homesteading journey with you and GNOWFGNINS just a short click away! Thank you for being real and your baby step suggestions! It’s just what I need! God Bless you Katie!

Katie,
I made crock pot yogurt for the first time this past fall and we all LOVE it! My kids especially, with just a little drizzle of honey. I just finished a bowl with granola on top…yum.
But this other fermenting thing is foreign to me and kind of scares me. Any books or other resources you would recommend? I have an organic cabbage(that was given to me) staring at me in the fridge and have no idea what to do with it! My family doesn’t like cabbage but I like sauerkraut. Maybe I should look into that.

I really, really like the 5-spice apple chutney in your post! I mix it with homemade yogurt and your homemade soaked granola. I’d like to use the spice mix in other recipes, too, if anyone has any suggestions. I’ve also made fermented carrots—tastes like pickles and are still crunchy.

Let’s see – I do yogurt every week, do fresh and hard cheeses, and have done sauerkraut. We also ferment all sorts of fruits and grains and honey. =) If you every want some basic wine recipes, I lots (potato wine? dandelion wine? check!).

I need to run and add a tablespoon of sugar to our soda starter. That is my BIG baby step – we are starting this week to make our own soda! Ginger ale, cola, and root beer? Making it all. Probably will start with a lemon lime soda and keep making different kinds. I am really excited about this one.

Lori,
Oh, how sad to throw away food! Thanks for the note, though – I am stuck on the pepper part of the 5-spice blend and thinking I’ll just skip it or use cinnamon…but I’ll shoot low, too. Thanks! Katie

I have been making saurkraut for the past 6 months and it turns out well. I have tried ginger carrots twice and both times the whey turned to slime and they tasted off. I used the recipe in Nourishing Traditions.

Just discovered your site and really enjoying it. I bought a Perfect Pickler on amazon (they have their own website too, perfectpickler.com) and made pickles, saurkraut and salsa. Love it! Chutney is great on curry dishes, it is sweet and sour at the same time.

Please remember that I’m just a gal who reads a lot and spends way too much time in her kitchen. I’m not a doctor, nurse, scientist, or even a real chef, and certainly the FDA hasn't evaluated anything on this blog. Any products mentioned are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Please talk to your health professional (or at least your spouse) before doing anything you might think is questionable. Trust your own judgment…I can’t be liable for problems that occur from bad decisions you make based on content found here.

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